One of my most painful to listen to audiobooks ever and it wasn't the narrator. The blurb says "we are led to question what we know about truth and memory, brain and mind, personality and fate, about one another and ourselves." and the book did none of this for me. It left me wanting to smack Andrew and his therapist. His story wasn't strange...it was quite ordinary; people have ups and downs all throughout life, not one person over the age of say, 30, hasn't suffered some sort of loss. What made Andrew different was his obsession with himself completely overshadowed any sign of compassion, if, he had any at all. It was all about him.

I grabbed this first because it was Doctorow and second because I have brain issues (AKA mental illnesses) of my own and thought that I would be able to relate or see my illnesses in a new way. There was nothing, so much nothing that I NEVER write an actual review like this in any form on Goodreads. This is indeed a first.

I love Doctorow, but it was as if someone else was writing this or he was trying to be his own version of the hip navel gazing debut memoirs/novels that are trendy right now.

Someone very wise said "Stick with what you know." No idea whom, but Doctorow should have listened.